The cPanel Admin » monitoring http://www.thecpaneladmin.com We know stuff about cPanel. Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:50:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 10 Free Monitoring Solutions to Consider http://www.thecpaneladmin.com/10-free-monitoring-solutions/ http://www.thecpaneladmin.com/10-free-monitoring-solutions/#comments Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:54:39 +0000 Vanessa http://www.thecpaneladmin.com/?p=159
  • Adding Services to Chksrvd for Monitoring
  • 11 Ways to Free Up Disk Space on a cPanel Server
  • Adding New Feature Groups for a cPanel Theme
    • ]]>     Server and network monitoring can be crucial to a host’s success. I mean, how embarrassing is it when your customers are aware of downtime before you are? You don’t have to pay big bucks or spend loads of time setting up monitoring for your server. We’ve compiled a list of free monitoring solutions you can use to guarantee minimal downtime for your users, and show customers how reliable your service is!

    Monitoring Software

    With a software option, you’d basically be setting up a server to act as a monitor, or installing software on your PC. Here are some free and open-source software solutions that we’ve used:

    Nagios

    Nagios is considered one of the best free server/network monitoring tools in the industry. It’s highly customizable and hundreds of plugins are available for it, not to mention that you can easily write your own plugins as well. The only downfall is that the setup can be tricky, and for most setups you need to install the nagios client (NRPE) on the monitored server.

    Munin

    Munin is a plug and play monitoring software mostly for network performance analysis. On a cPanel server, you can install this easily via WHM > Plugins.

    Monitorix

    Monitorix is a free, lightweight monitoring application similar to Nagios and Munin

    PHP ServerMon

    Monitors multiple services across multiple servers, allowing each to have its own custom notification settings.

    Server Monitor

    PHP-based monitoring software allowing monitoring for multiple ports on a server, and provides details uptime reports

    Here is a nice list of a few more: http://sixrevisions.com/tools/10-free-server-network-monitoring-tools-that-kick-ass/

    Hosted Solutions

    A hosted monitoring solution is a service offered and maintained by another provider, so you don’t have any software to install or configure. You’d generally sign up with the provider and use their control panel to manage your monitored sites. Here are the ones we’ve tested and recommend:

    mon.itor.us

    Mon.itor.us is a relatively new monitoring service that promises FREE monitoring forever, for external and internal hosts. When you sign up, you get free access to reports and uptime statistics, as well as widgets you can add to your site. At the time this article was written, this service is still in beta but is rapidly improving and is considered very reliable.

    247WebMonitoring

    This is a 100% free monitoring service that provides a wide range of flexible features for up to 5 sites at intervals of 15, 30, and 60 minutes. Features include content monitoring, pie charts, email/SMS notifications, maintenance mode, and an easy to use control panel. Site also includes a demo showing the service’s easy of use.

    SiteUptime

    The free plan provides monitoring for one site at 30 or 60-minute intervals for HTTP, POP3, SMTP, and FTP, from multiple locations. Low-cost upgrade options are also available: http://www.siteuptime.com/compare.php

    Pingdom

    The free plan includes monitoring for one site and up to 20 SMS alerts, with free unlimited email alerts.

    Uptime Spy

    A more advanced monitoring service that will monitor an unlimited number of resources from several geographic locations at 1,5,15,30, and 60-minute intervals. Features include advanced reporting and statistics, and unlimited notifications.

    Related posts:

    1. Adding Services to Chksrvd for Monitoring
    2. 11 Ways to Free Up Disk Space on a cPanel Server
    3. Adding New Feature Groups for a cPanel Theme

    ]]>     http://www.thecpaneladmin.com/10-free-monitoring-solutions/feed/ 2     Adding Services to Chksrvd for Monitoring http://www.thecpaneladmin.com/adding-services-to-chksrvd-for-monitoring/ http://www.thecpaneladmin.com/adding-services-to-chksrvd-for-monitoring/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:00:22 +0000 Vanessa http://www.thecpaneladmin.com/?p=62
  • 10 Free Monitoring Solutions to Consider
  • Adding IP Addresses to a Server
  • How to Change Your FTP Port
    • ]]>     Chkservd is the service in cPanel that checks to make sure that services are running, then restarts them if necessary.  It’s also responsible for the ‘Service Manager’ section in cPanel, which is also an interface where added services can be easily checked on and off.

    Service files are in /etc/chkserv.d/

    To add a new service, create a line in ”’/etc/chkserv.d/chkservd.conf’” in the same format as the others:

    service:1

    1 means the service should be enabled, 0 means it’s off.

    In ”’/etc/chkserv.d”’ each service has its own file.  Create a file called as the name of the service you are monitoring.  The contents of the file are in the format of:

    #SERVICE = PORT, SEND, RESPONSE, RE-START COMMAND

    There are two ways that cPanel checks services with chkservd:

    *Connection-based monitoring – By default, cPanel will try to connect to the service’s specified port, issue a command, and if a response is received within 10 seconds it will consider the service to be online. For instance, FTP:

    service[ftpd]=21,QUIT,220,/scripts/restartsrv_ftpserver

    *Process-based monitoring – cPanel will check for a specific process to determine whether it is online. For instance, named:

    service[named]=x,x,x,/scripts/restartsrvr_bind,named,named|bind

    If you have more than one restart command, you can separate them with semicolons in order of preference that they should be run.  Output of these commands will be logged to the chkservd.log

    After you’ve created the service’s configuration file, restart chkservd:

    /etc/init.d/chkservd restart

    You should then see the service listed in WebHost Manager in the ‘service manager section’

    Chkservd logs are in /var/log/chkservd.log.  Checks are done every 8 minutes, and everyone online service gets a +, offline services get a -.  If the service is determined to be offline, the restart command(s) specified in that service’s chkservd configuration file is issued and the output is logged.

    Related posts:

    1. 10 Free Monitoring Solutions to Consider
    2. Adding IP Addresses to a Server
    3. How to Change Your FTP Port

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